SCAC Code Diversity
Understand how evenly a company spreads its shipments across different ocean carriers — not just how many carriers it uses.
What is SCAC code diversity?
A SCAC code (Standard Carrier Alpha Code) identifies the ocean carrier on a shipment. SCAC code diversity measures how evenly a company's shipments are distributed across the carriers it uses — not simply how many different SCAC codes appear.
A company with 10 SCAC codes is not necessarily more diversified than one with 3. What matters is the proportion of shipments going to each carrier. If one carrier handles 95% of volume, diversity is low even with many codes on file.
How the score works
ImportYeti scores each company based on how evenly its shipments are spread across the SCAC codes it uses. Rather than simply counting carriers, we factor in the volume share each code represents — so a code that handles a large portion of shipments weighs more in the result.
Diversity = how evenly shipments are split across SCAC codes
Each SCAC code is weighed by its share of total shipments. Dominance by a single carrier pulls the score down — even if many other codes exist on file.
The result is a value between 0% and 100%, where higher means a more balanced split across carriers.
How to read the score
All shipments go through a single carrier. No diversity.
Some spread across carriers, but one or two still dominate.
Shipments are split perfectly evenly across all carriers used.
For example, a score of 73% means the company has a fairly balanced mix of carriers, but not a perfectly even split.
Examples
Two companies can both use three carriers and still have very different diversity scores.
Low diversity
Company A uses 3 SCAC codes, but 90% of shipments go through one carrier. The other two codes appear only occasionally.
Score: ~22%High diversity
Company B also uses 3 SCAC codes, but splits volume roughly 33% / 33% / 34% across all three carriers.
Score: ~99%Why this is useful
- See whether a company relies on one dominant carrier or spreads risk across several
- Compare carrier strategy between companies more fairly than counting SCAC codes alone
- Spot concentration risk in a company’s ocean freight routing
- Identify companies that actively multi-source carriers versus those locked into one